i put my little black dress on....

i just want an anchor tattoo on my body.

I'm planning on doing it before thanksgiving.

who's gonna come?

painted my nails tonight. Feelin' like a kind of real person again. Need to clean my room and do my laundry.
Gotta go to a stupid meeting tomorrow morning. stupid. Actually have to do some real work tomorrow. which is fine, but i'd rather "office" from a coffee shop with a chai and some cute boy baristas and a window seat to beautiful st. paul.

i've cleared my schedule for the last two days because something more pressing came up and really there is no place i would have rather been. Well, circumstances are total shit. and i have all the feelings about it, but sometimes your people have to come first, you know? 

These moments where the bottom falls out, they're too familiar, and i feel like we are all too used to being stuck wait deep in the mess. Sometimes it gets hard to see where God is in these moments. It's impossible to understand why the most faithful and good people are dealt the crappiest hands in life. It's the  most unfair thing i've ever witnessed, and lately i've seen too many families and lives ripped apart by lies, and fear, and addictions.  I think after this latest bottom drop, i'll be good for awhile.

i guess i'll never understand why we are all so afraid to be honest. Why none of us love ourselves enough to speak up and change the path if need be. Why do we let our hearts go unheard. Why are we so afarid and how do we change it.

and how in the world to we create spaces where we can be honest and it be ok, and how do you give grace when you feel the exact opposite of graceful. We talk about creating community, tribes, 3 am phone call people...best friends, spouses...family....who earn the right to speak into....life...and yet we're kind of full of shit about it.  We all are.

until the bottom drops out and somehow we are forced to let people in.

you know what weird, though? How much your heart breaks for other people.  or, maybe it's just me. maybe it's because i'm a crisis friend. I never thought i'd feel such real heart ache about things that don't directly affect me, yet somehow it's all familiar and a reminder off all the things in my own life I've pushed to the back of the filing cabinet.

and it's weird what you're willing to do for other people to avenge them or take away their pain. i mean, i guess that's what love is all about, maybe.

this could not be more vague, but once upon a time a friend told me she saw an image of me with a large garbage back on my back.

I'm a burden bearer as much as i can be. I'll bear your burden with you and i'll leave it at the foot of the cross with you. Wanting to believe with my whole heart that Jesus knows whats up....but being very human and scared and sad....most of the time i'm about 80 percent sure it's true.

Yesterday  i added a backpack....which is funny....because i've taken a lot of them off as of late....and this is so not my language...but it fits here....and this is one of two backpacks i'll willingly slip on...because these people....they're absolutely worth it....and no one should feel alone.

and just a side note. I do not love my family as well as i should. I feel horribly guilty about it.

I have a lot of guilt. I'm not even jewish or catholic. i don't know where it comes from. There are days though, when i just want to call my mom and cry and then just move on. I really miss having the "weepy phone call friend"

funny...this blog started with anchor tattoos and nail polish....and it ends in word vomit. I have to put it somewhere....

in other news...obsessed with Sara Bareilles' "blessed unrest" so, so  good. I can't even.
also: parenthood.....these things keep me sane.

Also...i got this coconut deep conditioner. My hair smells like the island. i love it.

Perhaps i'll specifically word vomit....but i'll lock those...because no one cares and not everyone wants there business plastered on an insignificant blog.

something wicked this way comes...

everything is weird.

living my life like it's golden....

i love me some jill scott.

I'm feelin' a whole mess of things but i feel kind of liberated by all of it. This weird juxtaposition of a hurting heart and a full one...it's, well, something words can't quite capture.

there have been a lot of full circle moments, which as soon as i process it all, I'll write about...but full circle in the strangest ways.

My heart is pumping hard, i feel kind of alive and passionate in a way i haven't in a long time.

I'm feeling better about being in my skin and doing what i was made to do...which....looks different than i thought it would but the feelings are the same.

what do you do when sin messes everything up? When people you love the most get their hearts shattered into a bajillion pieces. How do you even begin to put them back together? What do you even say?

how do you love them well when there is nothing you can do? All you want to do is transfer their pain to you.

You stand in the gap. You're on your knees on the regular. How funny that we think prayer is such small thing to do...when really, it's the biggest.

I will never understand why things turn out the way they do, all i can do is be present and do what i can.

Shauna is my girl here some of her latest post....we are kindred.

Two things were true about me when I was growing up: I was smart and I was overweight. Those two things defined me more than anything else. I was the unattractive person in an otherwise attractive family, but my mind was quick—it was easy for me to remember things, and it was easy for me to be funny.

And so that’s what I became—everyone’s chubby, funny friend. I was easy to be around, agreeable, capable. I knew how to make other people feel comfortable, how to draw them out, how to tell self-deprecating stories about myself. I learned to be the punchline.

And because I’ve believed those things about myself for so long, I sometimes don’t expect myself to be anything other than a punchline. I don’t push myself the way I could. I don’t ask for opportunities or promote my work. Essentially, I don’t take myself and my life as seriously as I could.

This old story isn’t helping me anymore, so I’m writing a new story. This new story says I can and do work hard, and that I’ve developed my skills as a writer and speaker over the last several years. It says I might have more to contribute than I thought, and that being funny and pleasant might not be the highest things to aspire to any longer.


There is so much goodness here....oh, shauna, you my girl.

December, you've always been a problem child

But to get yourself a new life you've got to give the other one away
And I'm starting to believe in the power of a name
Cause it can't be a mistake if I just call it change

This song and these lyrics....resonate with me today.

you're not alone in how you've been....

I've head a lot of really great things today. God always has a way with words that stop me in my tracks.

For thinking about what it means to love ourselves as much as we love other people. Whatever Oprah, don't get too proud it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the randomness i've stumbled into.

to Shauna posting this:

Numbers don't define humans. Not on a scale, not in a bank account, not on a GPA. Your particular magic can't be calculated by math.

 

I really like thinking that everyone has magic. I think it makes everything more fun. Don't ruin for me.

 

To Kurt Vonnegut writing this in a letter to high school students:

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.

I have so much to say about courage and bravery right now, but I think it can sum it up into this:

Let's embrace the "becoming" and be brave enough to try the things that make our soul grow.

i drank a truck load of coffee today. my brain is non-stop but full of things i need to say....

So why not say them?